Invasion of Privacy and Other Father's Day Activities
by Dr. SecretAgentMan
Summary: In which a former marine looses his mind over get-rich-quick schemes, six pounds of glitter, and obscure bible references. Or, the team makes Gibbs Father's Day cards, and the NCIS mailman has the unfortunate job of delivering them. As always, plenty of Papa Bear Gibbs and overall team-as-a-family fluffiness.


**Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or any characters, places, etc., associated with it. I also do not own Harry Potter, or anything associated with that franchise. Sadly. Pretty much if you see anything you recognize its not mine.**

 **Author's Note:** So much fluff. Like seriously, this is full of as much fluff, Papa Bear Gibbs, and adorable team bonding as possible. It's only rated T because cursing is pretty prevalent and kinda fun. I also haven't really looked all too much into the Admiral's character (or his name), but for the sake of this story, he is an infallible scumbag. Like the actual worst. Also, this is probably not how the actual mail system works at any federal building, but hey, all for the sake of the fluff, I say.

Grimbly is mine, and the cutest dork ever. That is, aside from McGee of course.

 **XXXXXXXXXXX**

If Christopher Grimbly were a character in the world renowned series of Harry Potter, you would have trouble deciphering what house he would be placed. His co-workers would likely say Ravenclaw, for the man was known for his quick wit and ire. His close friends would be more inclined to tout him a kind-hearted Hufflepuff, for they had all felt his comfort during trying times. The victims whose lives he had saved, though bursting through empty doorways with only his sig in hand, would deem him a dauntless Gryffindor at first sight.

But if you were to take the true master of placement itself, the one and only sorting hat and place it atop his head, despite him being twenty years too old to be sorted anyway, it would, in barely a second, raise its shabby brim and call out –"SLYTHERIN!" without so much as a doubt to Grimbly's assignment.

For those of the house of Slytherin, pride themselves on being cunning and sly, on finding their own ins and outs to any predicament. And that was exactly what Grimbly was doing at the moment.

After too many bad hands at last night's poker game, and a few misplaced bets, Grimbly found himself saddled with covering for Sanchez, the NCIS mailman who was out with the flu. It was the lowest of the low. Sanchez was a nice enough guy, actually one of the nicest guys Grimbly had ever met, but with the ex-military that made up ninety percent of NCIS headquarters, the portly, baby-faced mailman got ragged on quite a bit. It was never anything harmful or even mean per say, as Sanchez was good at giving as much as he got, but Grimbly found that anyone taking his place was given the exact treatment.

His cart had been pushed around, and men refused to get out of his way, making his annoying detour even more of a hassle. The mail that was slotted into the cubbies of the metal deathtrap he was lugging around kept getting mixed up so he had to make several u-turns around desks to pick up mail he had accidently given to the wrong person, or not given at all. More than once, he had to refrain from running the agent in front of him over, though sheer will and a very slight determination to keep his job.

But now he had found his saving grace. That Slytherin mindset had reared its unmistakable head, and immediately had zeroed in on the solution to his problem. There, striding out of the elevator in all his irritable and coffee-infused glory was the MCRT team leader, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. It was like a beam from the heavens had shown down upon him. No one got in Gibbs' way in the mornings; hell, no one got in Gibbs' way anytime, day or night. He had once heard one of his friend's probies describing the scenes like a page straight out of a bible, in which Gibbs was Moses and the other agents: the Red Sea, parting the way for their version of the robe-wearing wonder. Somehow, the comparison made sense, in a strangely sacrilegious way. There was always at least a ten-foot gap between NCIS members and Gibbs that was silently but visibly enforced, and Grimbly intended to make use of it.

He maneuvered his cart just barely into the inskirts of Gibb's ten-foot domain, skirting far enough away from the older man so that there was no risk of collision. Grimbly didn't know what would happen if he were to hit the former-gunny with the mail cart, but he definitely didn't want the consequences of hurting the man. Or even worse, _spilling his coffee_. If that happened, God only knew when, or more likely, _if_ he'd be _able_ to even be saddled with such an unfortunate task in the first place.

So he kept his distance, close enough to the team leader to avoid being harassed by his similarly Gibbs-fearful co-workers, but far enough away to avoid crashing into his current savior, all while haphazardly dumping mail on the corresponding agent's desks. He was pretty sure, _no_ _certain_ , that Gibbs knew what he was doing, but as long as the man didn't reproach him, Grimbly was content in his positioning. He made quick work of distributing all the mail, minus the ones for Gibbs' team as the gunny had yet to sit down. Which apparently, was last in his to-do-list, at least as far as Vance was concerned. Grimbly watched with veiled interest as the Director stepped out of his _second-floor_ office, motioned for Gibbs with an open hand, and ushered the man up the stairs… Where Grimbly obviously couldn't follow.

Damn.

At least he was mostly done with his early morning task. The only mail he hadn't distributed was those of Gibbs' team itself, and usually they weren't too big on the ragging, that was excluding Gibbs' SFA. Luckily, Grimbly was pretty sure he had seen the man duck out earlier to go visit their lab tech, dragging along the Mossad agent he was pretty sure had to be a ninja, and the computer geek whose primary response to anything DiNozzo said was a sigh and exaggerated eyeroll. That left no one in their section of the bullpen, and a very thankful Grimbly in their wake.

DiNozzo's mail was first, and he made quick work of flipping through the envelopes, making sure to check the outside of each letter thoroughly before tossing it in the stack atop the SFA's desk. Contrary to popular belief and his own childish nature, Tony was actually relatively well liked by the rest of the NCIS agents, so although the pertaining incident was almost ten years in the past, it was a habit now for anyone who'd gone through mail duty to check through his mail for traces of any unknown substance, powdery or otherwise. From what Grimbly could see, there was none to be found. It seemed that aside from a thank-you note from the girl DiNozzo had personally rescued from a shootout a couple of weeks ago and what looked like a curt letter from his father, nothing was out of the ordinary. Remembering Gibbs' fondness for his second-in-command, Grimbly was not ashamed to say he thanked his God –and several others- multiple times over for the fact.

With a sigh of relief that he deemed completely called for, Grimbly moved on down to the next desk.

He was more inclined to simply dump the mail on this one. Gibbs' transfer from Mossad was known around headquarters for her aggressive and frankly hostile nature, and there was no doubt in his mind that if she found him snooping around her mail, he'd find himself regretting it and more than likely, everything between his birth and his application to NCIS. Grimbly had heard what she could do with a paperclip, and there was nothing on earth that would make him go out that way.

 _Ever._

Still, he couldn't help but trail his gaze down the expanse of postage stamps that littered every third or fourth letter. He counted numerous from various Israeli states –providences? What made up Israel anyway?- many of which he had never heard of. It seemed that while Agent David had stopped contacting many of her Mossad 'friends', they had not stopped contacting her. He wondered if Gibbs knew about this, and then as abruptly as if the man could hear him, abandoned that train of thought. Of course Gibbs knew about it; he was Gibbs. The better question was did the Mossad know that Gibbs knew, and even more prevalent than that was did they know the consequences they would face if he decided to do something about it.

Grimbly had seen firsthand what Gibbs was capable –and willing- to do for his agents and he hoped, for Gibbs' sake and their own, that whoever Ziva was ignoring would take the hint and leave her alone. While he doubted Gibbs would take down the entirety of another country looking for his agent's harassers, he did not want to see the aftermath of an infuriated Papa-Bear-Gibbs. No one did.

At least, Grimbly hoped, as he moved on from David's desk to the one diagonal to it, that no one did. He did not want to meet the man that would willingly evoke the wrath of Gibbs. Such a man was either insane or very, very close to it, and Grimbly found himself overjoyed that they had someone that could find such a man almost instantly, no matter how they tried to hide. Or, Grimbly corrected himself, a person that could find the computer trial to lead them to him.

McGee prevailed at many other things as well, Grimbly noted. The kid –as Grimbly had heard DiNozzo affectionately call him a few times, never while within the probie's earshot of course- had an eye for detail and after Gibbs had worked out the stuttering and various other kinks, made a pretty good field agent as well. From what he'd heard around the bullpen, the techie's father had made an appearance in their neck of the woods about a year ago, when Grimbly himself was out and about as agent-afloat. The call itself seemed to be far from social, and the man himself hadn't been much for show either. The Admiral, as they had learned McGee's father was, wasn't what Grimbly had imagined him like at all. He had expected someone more like McGee, considerate and mild-mannered, besides being a genius in his own right, not this bigger-than-life, despicable character that was described to him with all the civility of the scum you'd find holed up in Guantanamo Bay. In all honesty, the description, while spoken with an ire that no one would dare speak about the man with, reminded him of Gibbs. This was, of course, without the subtle details, like the warmth the ex-marine showed his team and the pride that shown whenever he spoke of his agents and their accomplishments. Grimbly was certain, with that sort of dread that sits heavy in your stomach in ways you could only find unsettling, that generally-stoic, has-the-same-emotional-range-of-a-brick-wall Gibbs, doled out more praise to the techie in the ten years he had known McGee than in all of the years Admiral McGee had been a father.

The fact alone made him want to hit something. And if it made _him_ want to hit something, then Gibbs, who spent the last decade of his life practically _raising_ that baby-faced computer geek into one of the most reliable and well-trained agents NCIS had ever seen, would be veering more towards the realm of tearing apart the Admiral with his own bare hands.

What Grimbly wouldn't pay to see that. Hell, there wasn't much Grimbly wouldn't pay to get _in_ on that. Even if it took him revoking his earlier thoughts, he'd do it. Because you know what, he did hope that someone was crazy enough to permanently piss off Gibbs, and he _prayed_ that person was Admiral James Wallace McGee. There wasn't an agent in the bullpen that didn't get along with Gibbs' youngest agent, and Grimbly would bet an entire year's salary that if Gibbs and McGee's father were to face off, there wouldn't be a face in NCIS that wouldn't show up to see Gibbs beat the SOB senseless.

And then, Grimbly would make a fortune by letting the rest of them pay to spit on the carcass when the matter was done with. Like the mail he was stacking on McGee's desk, he could already see the cash piling up before his eyes.

Cash that wouldn't come from the paycheck he was obviously blowing away by spending the last ten minutes daydreaming over far-away fantasies, that is.

Frowning, Grimbly checked himself back into the present. He only had the Director, who for some reason always took his mail after everyone else had gotten theirs, and Gibbs' mail to deliver, and he had better make it fast. He was already late for his own job; there was no need to piss off both his boss and Gibbs. Nothing good would come of it. With warning signals firing off behind his eyes, Grimbly quickly gathered up all of Gibbs' mail and rushed over to the lead agent's desk.

He stacked it as fast as he could, taking great care to be swift yet diligent at the same time. Everyone knew that Gibbs liked his mail ordered a specific way, and it didn't matter whether you were on mail duty or not, you _knew_ that order like you knew your own name or the number of fingers on your hand. Grimbly recalled the knowledge of Gibbs' mail order from his first days in the bullpen, when SFA Ian Mackleforth dragged him out into the hallway after he had nearly knocked a couple of papers off Gibbs' desk, and reamed the filling system deep into the recesses of his brain.

Personal letters were their own stack, which was piled at the center of Gibbs' desk. Everything there was left the way it was, unless of course, one of his ex-wives' was calling. Those were placed precariously close to the edge of the desk, just leaning over the trash can. Grimbly chucked at the obvious jab as he chucked two notes to that side, and then went to work on the remaining messages.

From then on it was easy enough. Each agency was placed in a different stack, and each stack arranged so that the five or six piles only occupied a small corner of the desk. Today there were four from the FBI –including one from Fornell that Grimbly couldn't decide whether to put in personal or not-, two from local LEOs involving a previous case, and a note from their own agency that Grimbly smacked down with a flourish and a happy grin.

That was finally it. He was pretty much done. Just a quick rush up to the Director's office and he was back on regular du-

 _Wait_.

He had organized Gibbs' mail into piles, gotten everything into its own slot, but there were still messages left. Nestled in his hands were four oddly shaped envelopes. Too big to be summons but too small to be case files, they sat innocuously in Grimbly's open palm as he darted his eyes back and forth between the offending items. These did not fit in the system. They were certainly personal, but not the kind of personal Gibbs had meant when he directed all agents to place it in one pile.

Grimbly licked his lips. He did not want to offend Gibbs. The man scared him in ways he thought years of being in the Navy had knocked out of him, and he certainly didn't want to mess up the system Gibbs had obviously been working with for the past who-knows-how-long the man had been with NCIS. He knew that Gibbs didn't handle new well. The tale of Gibbs and his entourage of the seventeen phones that DiNozzo kept hidden in his desk had spread like fire around headquarters. Now, all Grimbly could see was his head in place of the cell. Unsurprisingly, he was not a fan of the image.

Maybe he could find a way to fix this though. If he could figure out what the letters were, then maybe, just maybe, he could find where they fit in the stacks and leave without evoking the wrath of Gibbs upon him and his team.

Yah, that seemed like a good idea, and sure enough, Grimbly found himself standing over Gibbs' desk, warily flitting his gaze every once-in-a-while to the Director's office in case Gibbs were to return. Seeing that the impromptu meeting seemed to still be running smoothly, Grimbly slid his attention back to the task at hand, or rather, _in_ hand.

There were four letters in all, each a different color, each marked with Gibbs's name across the front. Each card was vastly different than the next. The first was the largest envelope. It was an almost offensive shade of red with something sparkly sprinkled across it –was that _glitter?_ \- that glimmered in bright gold against its' less-than-desired background. The next was a covered with a black velvety material, with white lace that bordered the edges, all of which was coated in an ungodly amount of what seemed to be Elmer's glue. After, came a much more normal-looking beige card with something written across the bottom in a language he couldn't even begin to decipher. It smelled vaguely of a spice cabinet, but with strong hints of cinnamon and basil. Last was a pale blue card. Stamped across the middle in the font you'd expect from a typewriter were Gibbs' name and the date. The dye still hadn't quite dried and smudged slightly in his hands.

Grimbly stared at them all, feeling the slightest bit in shock. It was obvious who each of these was from, and just as obvious as to why they were made. Grimbly had been ignoring the day since his own reason for the holiday passed away nearly a decade ago, but the date hit him painfully hard now. He swallowed once at the painful reminder, and slid his eyes closed tightly in reverence. When he opened them, he found that his decision was made.

He slid all the letters already crowding the man's desk outward and away from the center, disregarding the revered system entirely. Extra sheets of lined paper, a spare notebook, and a couple pens were pushed away as well until all that remained was a designated spot, clear of all distractions. It was there he laid the four remaining envelopes. In a final act, and what he hoped wasn't _his_ final act for disturbing the sanctity of the team leader's desk, Grimbly fanned the letters out so that each envelope was visible to the viewer's eye.

When he was done, he huffed out a breath, and turned back to the cart, sliding his hands down the shiny expanse of the metal handrail. With a steadiness he didn't feel, he wheeled the cart away from the MCRT's corner of the bullpen to the stairwell. His thoughts were alive with every moment he had ever shared with Gibbs' team; his new knowledge now making connections he hadn't made in the years before: the teasing between DiNozzo and McGee, the constant correction of David's fractured idioms, Gibbs' reprimanding but never harmful headslaps, the late night dinners where they'd all gather around the front desk and discuss their most recent case.

Looking back, he wondered why he hadn't thought of them as a family before then.

Muttering slightly, Grimbly dug the director's mail out of the metal cubby, and wondered just how many more ground-breaking revelations his day could handle before his brain exploded. One more and he was certain he wouldn't live through the next twenty-four hours. Then again, one more and he wouldn't have crashed into Gibbs as the man sped his way back to the bullpen.

Grimbly landed with an –ooof!, not quite falling but not quite catching himself either. He found himself buried face-first in Gibbs' shoulder as the taller man shook off the shock of having a former marine nearly cave into you. Silence rained down on them, Gibbs looking like he was ready to either throw him down or just slaughter him all together, before finally Grimbly raised his head to meet the gunny's piercing blue eyes and against his better judgment, _smiled_.

"Happy Father's Day, sir."

Grimbly just barely caught the tail-end of Gibbs' look of surprise before he had maneuvered himself out of the line of fire and up the rest of the stairs. His mind only had one setting now, and that was to get himself the hell away from Gibbs before the man shot him for interfering with his personal life. For that reason, he barely waited for the go-ahead from the guard to go into the Director's office, instead bursting in there at the slightest notion of his allowment.

Vance nearly threw up his book at the suddenness of his appearance.

"Grimbly!" The Director exclaimed.

"Sorry sir." Grimbly responded, the words more a formality than a real apology. At this moment, all he wanted to do was get back to the sanctity of his office, where his hard ass of a team leader certainly wasn't receiving Father's Day cards from his agents and things _actually made sense_. Everything that happened between then and now mattered very, very little to him at the moment. "Won't happen again, sir."

"It better not." Vance scoffed, but he took the mail offered to him either way. With a quick eye, he skimmed through the letters, and upon finding them satisfactory, nodded Grimbly's dismissal. Which he took. _Gladly_.

Grimbly made quick work of turning back towards the entrance and showing himself out. He stalked back towards the stairs, more than ready to escape into the elevator and away from all this madness, but something stopped him. That feeling was back, the one that he knew from years of looking over his shoulder constantly. He was being watched, and it didn't take half a guess to know who.

Gibbs was still down on the ground floor, now surrounded by his recently returned team, but his eyes were not focused on them; instead, they met Grimbly's brown ones with unnerving accuracy. Grimbly held that gaze, whether in fear or bravery he wasn't sure. For one beat, two, and then as if Gibbs had found something within their intertwined looks, the older man's face softened and he nodded once. They broke gazes, and on the way out towards the elevator, Grimbly could've sworn he heard the sound of a patented Gibbs' slap, and chastisement where he could've sworn he heard the phrase, 'excessive amounts of glitter.' How the man manages to take down terrorists and still sound like a doting father Grimbly doesn't know. He decides he'll ask his wife about it later when he gets home. She's always been better at these things.

(Instead, he gets three words into the question, rephrases, and asks if she wants to start a family together. Thirteen months later when he gets his first glimpse at the face of his son, he stares wonderingly, and somehow, he knows he's found his answer.)

 **XXXXXXXXXXX**

Happy late, late, late, _late_ , Father's Day everyone!

Papa Gibbs is my favorite and a complete gift. Hope you liked my dears! If you want some more serious Papa Gibbs, be sure to check out my other NCIS story 'The Seventeenth Piece.' (Sorry about the shameless self-promotion!)

As always, tell me what you liked, what you didn't, or just what you want to see next in a review!


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